CHESTER racecourse is pushing to host 15,000 punters at their three-day festival from May 5.
That is nearly two weeks ahead of Boris Johnson’s planned May 17 return for fans to live sporting events.
Racecourse chiefs have submitted a plan to have 5,000 fans a day over the course of their three-day Boodles Festival, say the Racing Post.
Bosses say the course already has lateral flow testing kits on order.
And they say a £1million plan is in place that can help accommodate the return of punters at the Boodles Festival.
The festival would form part of a series of trial events throughout the UK, much like the potential return of fans to the FA Cup and Carabao Cup finals.
Chester’s chief executive Richard Thomas told the Racing Post: “We’ve got the plan in place for what would have been a trial event anyway, so we are speaking again to our local authority and with the Sports Technology and Innovation Group [Stig] to see whether the three days of the May meeting would be a sensible trial with perhaps four or five thousand people.
“Then we wait for clarity whether the events from then onwards are limited to four thousand or ten thousand people, depending on the stadia the government is talking about, before reopening properly in the middle of June hopefully.
“There are three stages with the test events, the limited capacity events and then whatever we feel will happen from the middle of June onwards.”
Punters back on track would be a welcome sight, with next month’s Cheltenham Festival to be held behind closed doors.
There could be a total of 15,000 fans back at the track in the three-day festival
Chester could be the first big racing meet with fans watching the action live, and Thomas added: “With our plan in place we’d hope that could be looked upon favourably.
“It’s ready to go and we have the tests ordered, so if they need us to do it we can do it and it would probably lend itself quite well.
“We’re crossing our fingers but I think the key to all of these things is knowing enough time in advance so that you can make it happen, and being sure that it will happen.”
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